Two South Asian doctors acquitted in sexual assault case in Toronto

DR. Amitabh Chauhan and Dr. Suganthan Kayilasanathan, who were charged with gang sexual assault and administering a drug with intent to stupefy in 2011, have been acquitted.

They were found not guilty of sexually assaulting and drugging a 23-year-old medical student in a downtown Toronto hotel by Ontario’s Superior Court Justice Julie Thorburn on Thursday.

The judge found that there was reasonable doubt that the woman did not consent to sexual encounters that night, according to a Toronto Star report.

She said there is no evidence to support Crown assertion that the doctors planned to drug and sexually assault the woman, who appeared to be in full command of her faculties according to hotel security video taken shortly before the alleged assault. Video in the club where the woman and the two doctors also went together does not show either man slipping anything into a drink.

Thorburn noted that expert evidence presented at trial stated that her symptoms could be caused by an alcoholic blackout. She also found that the woman sent text messages during the time she described feeling drugged.

Both doctors had claimed that all sexual contact that night was consensual.